Contrary to its name, the Box is actually a puzzle that is solved by the trigram markings on its top and bottom. Whenever the box’s sides are rotated to match any one of the trigrams, it opens to project a map to the site of the door to release the related demon before closing and forming the door’s key.

The Box is also indestructible and cannot be opened by any other way — especially power tools — as Hak Foo learned the hard way in the Season 2 episode Jade Times Jade. When he tried to break it with his head, Hak Foo instead got a red mark on his forehead, while the table it was secured to was massively damaged upon impact.

Also, since the Pan’Ku Box is forged of good magic, it cannot be touched by dark magic, such as that of Shendu. As a result, if Shendu were to ever try to touch the Box, it would immediately burst into flame, harming him while taking no damage itself.

When Uncle banished the Demon Sorcerers back into the Netherworld, he sealed off the portals and imprisoned them forever. With the portals sealed forever, the Pan’ku Box can never again open any portals, making the object obsolete. Shendu is the only exception to this imprisonment, having been a disembodied spirit when he was sent back, but could slip between dimensional walls after being infused with power from each of his other siblings.

Description

The Pan'ku Box is a somewhat-elongated octahedronal puzzle box with truncated upper and lower vertexes containing a spherical core of good magic so powerful that Shendu (and, presumably, his kind) cannot touch it. In place of the severed corners are green trigram designs representing the element from which each of the eight Demon Sorcerers derived their magic.

The box itself is made up of thirty-two pieces. Each are painted deep blue, save for the red diamonds just above and below the octagonal yellow marks centered on each of the box's four faces, and the thin yellow strips bordering the truncated vertexes.

Function

The box's pieces were designed to rotate on both a horizontal and vertical axis. Being an elongated octahedron, the box has only two pieces that rotate vertically, while the horizontal pieces are layered, eight small pieces mounted atop (and beneath) the eight larger pieces that border the octahedron's "equator," so to speak.

The Pan'ku box worked by using the trigrams representing the element, from which each of the eight Demon Sorcerers derived their magic, in order to denote its function. A trigram's unbroken lines represented a vertical half-turn, while the broken lines represented a horizontal quarter turn.

Once one of its eight puzzles has been successfully completed, the box begins to glow with good magic as it spontaneously levitates into the air without any sort of assistance. The section beneath the representing-trigram will open up, revealing the box's core of good magic as it discharges a stream of energy that generates a map revealing the location of that particular demon's portal.

The box will only generate this image for a relatively brief period of time before closing up again. However, the representing-trigram will protrude from the box itself, representing the "key" that would open up the portal again.

When in the presence of a portal, the box will react in the same fashion as when one of its puzzles had been solved. But the difference here is that the discharged energy stream would actually generate and open the portal itself, rather than simply generate a map.

Trivia

The Pan'ku Box was last seen when Jackie, Uncle, and Tohru were about to use it to open Shendu's portal in order to rescue Jade. Before it could be activated, it was stolen from them by Hak Foo (on orders from Shendu), who drove off with it in a jeep, leading the Chans to instead use a demon-banishing spell on Shendu to open the portal. While it can be presumed that Hak Foo is the only person who knows what happened to the Box afterward, he was never shown to mention it during his later appearances in the series.

The Pan'ku Box replaces the Dragon Talisman in the season 2 opening sequence when Jackie catches Jade playing with it before he accidentally causes it to activate. It is then replaced with the Dragon Talisman again for the remaining seasons.

The Pan'ku Box is named after the first living being and the creator of all in some versions of Chinese mythology.